I told her that I wanted to write a guest post for her blog – don’t know whether she received my message.

Her article was (and I hope still is) filled with quotes on success from people that are regarded as role-models by many people all over the world.

The quote: The road to success is always under construction by Lily Tomlin really caught my eye.

The other one was Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts by Winston Churchill. When you read her article, please let me know which quote you liked the most.

Are there good enough reasons why you should become a successful person?

Yes – if you know what you want and have a strategy to start you off for now, go ahead. Be successful. Make your dreams a reality.

May be you are not contented with some of your habits. Getting rid of them will bring you contentment. I believe you want to be happy, to be a better person, right?

I read in some old book some years back that the greatest achievement (success) you and me can get our hands on is to love God and other people. If anything is standing between you and achieving this great goal, find a way to get past the wall. Hit the dirt road now – and never look back.

May be you are not happy with the way you live at the moment and you think that introducing some new changes in your life will do you some good.

People vs. Success

The pursuit of success sometimes can be compared to a tourist going out on an adventure alone.

He has to spend a lot of time alone walking, pitching his tent and spending more time walking, most of the times thinking about the journey ahead; and usually there aren’t a lot of people to talk to – except the people who might be living around the places where he stops to pitch his tent and spend the night before hitting the road come the next day, early before sunrise.

There are many things he’ll be scared of while out there, alone in the wild. Strange sounds in the middle of the night, darkness, fear of being attacked, fear of catching an illness.

He has to contend with two opposing voices in his head always. One telling him to pack everything and go back home and another one telling him to continue with the journey; to hold onto patience till next evening – the latter giving him assurance that things will be fine.

The problem is he never has a clue when that future (when things finally work out) will come. Sometimes thoughts like, This is just a waste of time parks truck-loads of negativity in his ‘brain-lot’.

The tourist in each of us trying to lead us to success

Some people will hit the dirt road early before sunrise everyday till they reach the place they want to go.

Some will head back home…at a point when they should have stayed on the road and just walked a few more miles to achieve a particular goal. They head back home not knowing how close they were to finding success.

So, they get back home, enjoy doing things they normally do. Then a time comes when they aren’t contented with their life anymore. They hit the road again.

Sometimes they persevere till they find success. Sometimes they head back home having achieved nothing – and how they wish luck could look in their direction!

Some will fight the fear within them and work their way to the top. Some will give up altogether and later on regret why they didn’t try harder.

What about you? Regardless of whether you have the characteristics that most people believe define success or not, you just have to walk one mile, walk a hundred more, and on top of that, walk another ten.

And if that isn’t enough yet keep walking.

I hope you get everything about the illustration I used.

Let’s break down the illustration – and see how you can apply it to your daily life

The things the tourist packs in the bag before embarking on the journey are the things we usually prepare or use to nurture our talents, improve customer care, do away with bad habits or learn something new – things we use to do the hunting.

The tourist is scared of the dark, right? There are a lot of things we’re scared of when we start scratching the earth for success – think about fear of failure, facing people who are opposed to our ideas, not being sure whether the risk we’ve taken won’t chew all the money in our bank accounts before we achieve anything substantial, self-doubt, lack of confidence in our ability to do things the way we feel they should be done , fear of making mistakes, spending a lot of time pursuing this thing called success – which always is kind of boring to many, fear of trusting that voice which always tell us to stay on and fight, among other things.

The tent – that’s where we should rest as we lay out better strategies or fine-tune the ones we already have. It’s good to get a biography or autobiography and mull over the events, that is, at moments when we just want something to boost our confidence.

To keep us going.

To keep us inspired and ready to do the hard work every single day, knowing that shortcuts leads only to temporary gains and long time pain.

Success lies somewhere in the future but always has a connection to the present. If you stay on the dirt road, walking, trying at all times to never loose your focus you’ll meet her.

Sieve all the advice that is thrown your way and reasonably make decisions that will help you when ‘that voice’ tells you, you are just another loser wasting time.

Even if you fail once, twice, thrice or seventy seven times, there are still chances for you…to get things right.

To end this post, let’s look at a few things you can do starting now become a successful person

You already know that water is essential to human life but if not handled well can lead to harm. I would like to highlight this one point first: When you become successful (or when you start experiencing mild success), please don’t discriminate on silly grounds like race, age, social status, sex, IQ etc. Just like water serves every human being, without discrimination, let your success (and actions) benefit others too.

Do you know the struggle water has to endure to get to the ocean from the water towers inside some thick forest? Our pursuit for success should be just that enduring. We have to endure the long trips. Have a clear picture of where you are headed first. Then start your journey. Fast or slow.

Success has no finish line, so you’ll have to push past the obstacles that come your way. The struggle is never over. You can’t wake up one day and say: ‘I’m successful enough.’ When success to you means becoming a better person, the journey never ends till the day you hear, ‘May his (her) soul rest in peace.’

Water is almost accessible to every human being. And where it is not accessible, some will struggle to get it. And they eventually enjoy the fruits of their struggle when water touches their dry lips. Likewise, success is accessible to every human being. Chase it, for the right reasons, and you’ll be glad you did.

Success may be like raging floods. Be careful. Handling success is not one of the easiest things to do. It will be embarrassing (or demeaning) when you sit somewhere ‘in the comfort of your success’, when the way you conduct yourself is a nightmare to people out there.

Enjoy yourself but not at the expense of others. Let your water flow on the river bed. Don’t let the it overtake cars on the highway. Let the water stay, where it is meant to be.

When you buy a bottle of mineral water and pour it into a glass does the water say, ‘…for your information, I like it here inside the bottle…I don’t like being in glasses…’ I don’t know, it might. But is that a reason for us to listen to it and obey? No.

We have control over it. We decide whether we want to pour it into a mug, a beaker or a flask. Likewise you can become successful in any field you are passionate about (when hard work accompanies passion).

If I want to be a successful mathematician, I’ll definitely be successful as long as I get my math formula and the answers right (on top of constant practice).

If I want to be a successful marketer, success won’t say to me, ‘…you know what…I don’t like this field…you are on your own dreamer. Get in touch with me when you ditch marketing.’ With hard work, my wish should be its command.

Remember water can be solid, liquid or gaseous? Success is like that too. What I mean is that there is no one clear picture of what success is. You can’t say it is blue without hearing someone shout, ‘Noooooooooooo! It’s black.’

Success may be blue in colour alright. But to a young girl named Felicity, it might be light blue. To Churchill, it may be green. And as long as you find the right definition of what success is to you it will be alright.

Stick to what works for you. If you prefer the liquid to the gaseous or solid state, no problem – so long as what you are doing is right.

Just like everyone needs water to stay alive and healthy, your success should be geared towards the same goal. Let it hydrate life. Let success make you a better person. Don’t take too much of it that you end up intoxicated. Take the right measure.

Take 2.5 litres of success daily.

Without water, there could be no life on this planet. Without success diseases could have possibly wiped out the entire earth population. Without success and struggle by leaders from different parts of the globe, the earth could be a slave to more inhumane ways.

And oh, we use water to clean dirty things. We use water to bathe, shower, wash our hands and clothes etc. It can be used to clean the ills in the society.

Success doesn’t always equate to more money. It is that struggle we put to become better people. It is when we win battles that at the end add value to the lives of people close to us as well as those far away.

Water makes music. Probably you have heard the music made by the waves if you’ve been to a beach. We listen to music when we are low to uplift our spirits.

Real success is not monotonous. It is there for you when you feel low. It doesn’t suck all your energy and force you into saying, ‘I cannot do this anymore.’

Just remember that there are always lots of fruits that come with it.

But good things hardly ever come easy. Start by putting into good use the time you have, lest procrastination steal a big chunk of it from you.

What do you say? Share your tips, personal experiences or anything you are going to do (in regards to life and success) after reading this post in the comments section below.

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This is a beautiful analogy, Philos! I love how you compare success to water. Perhaps my favorite quote, “Take 2.5 litres of success daily.” I believe that many people forget this. Many become self-obsessed when reaching success, and forget about that little thing called humility. What does success mean to me? To be happy in what I do, working on my own terms, and garner respect from fellow professionals and readers alike. Success will be when I’m holding a book in my hand with the bottom reading, “By Shari Lopatin.” Thanks for this great post!

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